New Recipe Index

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Pine nuts. First time tasting this and it is so so good. My MIL got me a small pack of pinenuts when she came back 6 months ago. It's pretty pricey here. I don't think I'll buy it here, because it's really expensive.. but come to think of it, it's almost like the price of blueberries.. oh... I don't know. Maybe I will, maybe I won't buy. I don't know yet.

This cake is very very light and yummy. For pumpkin lovers, this is a must try. For no pumpkin lovers also must try. My husband who doesn't fancy pumpkins was cheated into eating this. My brother who is watching his cholesterol levels, didn't know that it's pumpkin in it, and thought it was egg yolks, still ate it cos it is so good. And when he knew it's pumpkin, he gave a sigh of relief and ate even more. There might not be any pumpkin smell or taste in this cake, but the texture is marvelous. And the pinenuts added a wonderful aroma to the cake. Feel free to subtitute with flaked almonds or almond nibs if you don't want to use pinenuts.

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 140(fan)/160C
2. Combine pumpkin puree with milk. Then add in egg yolks and oil. Mix till well blended and put in flour ad mix til smooth.
3. Put egg whites into another bowl and beat until frothy. Put in vinegar and continue to beat until soft peaks. Put in sugar and beat until stiff (pointy stiff)
4. Fold 1/3 of egg whites into (B) . Pour (B) into remaining egg whites and fold.
5. Pour into a 10 inch lined square pan, level the batter.
6. Sprinkle some pine nuts over cake and bake for 25 minutes.
7. When cake is done, remove from oven. Let it sit in the pan for 5 minutes, remove from pan (be gentle) and tear down the side liners. Let cake cool down totally.
8. Overturn cake and peel off lining paper and cut into half. Spread one side with butter cream and top with another side of the cake. To make slicing nicer chill cake for 30 minutes before slicing to serve.

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lovely notes:

This looks soo, soo good. It's even pretty healthy. Thank you for sharing this. Beautiful pictures, btw. I have a few questions though. Is there a specific type of vinegar (rice, white, apple cider?)Did you make your own pumpkin puree or get it canned?Also, is it possible to substitute the corn oil with something else? Thank you so very much for taking your time to read this. :)

so delicious looking, i was going to say pinenut really is expensive...and still u put so many hahah but then if less will probably affect the outcome of the cake eh....anyway i hope one day i get to taste some of your products :)

Wendy, the cake looks so gd. I dun fancy pumpkin but the way u described, shall I give it a try? hmmm.... Pine nut is gd with lot of health benefits, one of them is cholestrol lowering so can ask ur bro to eat more :P

Wendy,Your pumpkin cake looks sooooo good, i've made a similar one in cupcake form adapted from a Japanese chiffon cake cookbook, the pumpkin taste is very subtle, you wont really know it and I think it is a good way to let those guys or kids who hate eating veges to eat the pumpkin without their knowing, I will try your version bec it is so tempting, maybe substitute with sweet potato, coz got plenty of sweet potato at home but no pumpkin....Sem

From all the pictures I can see the cake is really soft. I like this type of cake a lot but not my hubby. He said it is like eating a piece of sponge ha ha.. he doesn't know what he miss. I have bookmark this to try out once I get the right size pan. I only have an 8" square pan. Thanks wendy for sharing with us all your wonderful cake recipes.

Wow the cake's crumb looked really fine and uniform! It seemed like you added emulsifiers into the cake batter! Well done! i wish my cake looked half as good as yours. The orange colour is so appetising!

Hi.......Help me....haha.... i had done the pumpkin cake and the japanese cotton cheese cake...i am using 8" round cake pan...the pumpkin cake once cool down it left 1 1/2 inch...the japanese cheese cake left only 1 inch.....what is properly wrong ??? please advice...

Jaymie,1. Did you beat the egg whites correctly?? I'm sorry I have to ask this because I do not know your baking background. You blog is "empty". hahaha.

2. My pumpkin cake after baked in a 10 inch pan is just slightly more than 1 inch tall. But is your pumpkin cake's texture soft and fluffy??

3. Japanese cheesecake will shrink, as said by my recipe book's author, but 1 inch seems to short, sure boh? 1 inch? got measure with ruler?But it seemed to have shrunk too much if really 1 inch.My mango cotton cheesecake was shorter than the original version. Just watch out for the texture, if the texture is soft and fluffy, how tall the cake is, doesn't really matter.

It'll be great if you can provide me with pictures to look at the texture, and height :)

Hi.... i have d same though...i think there's somewhere wrong the way i beat my egg white as both of d cake is using seperate egg white n yolks method.....i will try to upload the photos as i am lazy to organise a nice blog like u...haha...but i'm much enjoy to view blog like u.....mostly i will upload to facebook only...

My pumpkin cake tasted like a marshmallow ...it was so soft but still bit wet....i baked it 160 C / 30 mins.......

The cotton cheese cake wasnt like cottonly but it was edible...not bad...just way too short...haha

Btw, i just started my baking day.....bout 2 months....thanks for your prompt reply...and nice to meet you....you are much talented....

Wendy,I used to received a lot of spam comments in my cooking blog. Hence, I hardly check the comments and used to delete all of it. :P. Aiyor so sorry about that, next time you can email me at cookingmomster@gmail.com if you have any question.

Hi Wendy, It's me again ! haha...i dunno what type of oven i am using as it didnt stated there ....it was quite old version and it was "ROUND" ....haha....i think it's more for to bake chicken...lolz.... Btw, i had make my coffee chiffon via your orange chiffon recipe ....it didnt sink ! congrat me......lolz..... but it was soft but NOT fluffy as chiffon suppose to be ! i am using a 24cm chiffon pan and it give me 2 inch cake in the outcome...was it abit short ?

About your chiffon cake, it's not supposed to the THAT short. Did you INVERT the cake after you remove from oven? If you saw on the orange chiffon recipe, I also used a 23cm pan, and it stayed right up until the rim.

It was metal with glass lid...with timer and temperature control only....

I did overturned it while it was out from the over immediately....but my cake wasnt rise half the cake pan and it suffer cracked surface as well..... if you dont mind please let me have your email and i will send some photos for u .....thank you so much for your reply...if u are happen to be in ipoh, i treat u to old time white coffee ... haha ;D

Jaymie, I think yours is an electric dutch oven.Anyway,my chiffon batters are 80% full in my 23cm pan and 65% full in my 25cm pan, before being baked, as you can see in the picture.

If your cake didn't even rise to half the pan after being baked, I know what went wrong.If your eggs whites are beaten correctly but you have low volume batter, you didn't fold the egg whites but you STIRRED!!! Maybe that was what happened to your cheesecake and pumpkin cake. All these cakes involves beaten egg whites and the folding method.

Hi Wendy, ya, it is sticky. When I overturn the cake and peel off the baking paper, the cake surface facing down one will stick on another baking paper. So result turn out is not nice like yours can see the cake "skin"..Sandy

Sandy,Did you remove your cake from the pan at step 7?place it on a rack, if possible.If you leave the cake to cool completely in this pan, the base might become wet due to condensation.The base of my cake is not shown in this picture. They are all surfaces. I halved the cake vertically, not horizontally. Stuck them back to back with cream. Which made my final cake to be a 5X10X2 inch cake.

Hi Wendy, I leave the cake like what u said abt 5mins in the cake pan. After that remove and tear the sides baking paper let it cool on table. I did not cool it down on wire rack, I just let the cake cool down on the table. I think this is the problem making the base of the cake turn wet and sticky. Am I right? Sandy

Yvonne,Yes, I'm in my confinement.You can use any cream you like, or don't use any cream at all.In my blog, usually 2 temperatures are given (if you've read about it in my 'about').The first temperature is with fan, second without fan. Not all ovens come with fan. Choose which temperature that suits your oven's function.

Hi Wendy,Can I use lemon juice instead of vinegar? If yes, how much should I replace? I would like to make half of the recipe and only has 8"x8"x3" or 7" x 2.5" round trays. Which can I use to bake half of the recipe? Or should I go and get a 5x5" square tray?Thank you for your time.

Wendy, I baked half of your recipe this morning, same for the buttermilk. My cake came out at close to 1" height when out from oven. It became 0.5" in height after it cooled totally. So the total size was 4x8x1". I baked for 15mins and the top was too brown. Can I have your email address as I would like to email you somePictures of the cake and buttermilk to clear some doubts. Thank you for your time.